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Comment by sangnoir | Hacker News Reader

> So yeah, Ford might make a fast car, they will almost never be able to build a software driven car, which is the car of the future.

I would kill for a "low-tech" EV - think Toyota Corolla[1], but with an electric power train. No touch screen, no "self driving" beyond lane assistance & adaptive cruise. Unfortunately, manufacturers are unwilling to start off with a low-margin products, but I believe that is the car of the future, and will sell like hot cakes.

1. An electric Ford Maverick would fit the bill too, if they don't ape Tesla's cockpit design. The Nissan Leaf is close to my ideal, but the lack of active cooling on the battery is a non-starter.

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The main impediment for this approach is still the battery pack. Unless you can reduce the cost/kwh of batteries the corolla of the ev world won't happen. Battery costs per Kwh are on a downward trend. Tesla is probably around 100-110$ per KWh translating to about 7-8K for it's flagship 70 KWh battery pack.

7-8K in about 30K of manufacturing costs. https://electrek.co/2018/05/31/tesla-model-3-teardow-materia...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2021/12/01/ar...

So am not sure a low margin approach would fly right now, simply because of supply constraints for volume production. Probably at a 10M/year run rate, the economies of scale would tip in the low margin high volume favour.

How would you solve this conundrum. Can you just stick to a low margin approach from day 1 ? Focus relentlessly on cost reduction in all parts of the cars except the powertrain and the battery since those are the key reliability aspects.

May be a conventional 5 seater car is an overkill for most usage and can you instead build a version with a 35KWh battery pack but a 2 seater like a Miata. No frills, fast and safe car at nearly half the cost but am not sure if you can maintain the same range.

> I would kill for a "low-tech" EV - think Toyota Corolla[1], but with an electric power train. No touch screen, no "self driving" beyond lane assistance & adaptive cruise.

So... a base model Nissan Leaf?

A Nissan leaf would be perfect if it had active battery cooling. Replacement batteries prices eye watering (relative to purchase price), and Nissan Leaf batteries lose capacity rapidly (based on older models), especially in hot climes

This is what is desperately needed.

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